A look of dread came upon her countenance, and she whispered, 'Once or twice.'
'You would never have consented?'
'Only if I had known that release was hopeless, or that Basil—'
Her voice failed.
'That Basil—?' echoed Marcian's lips, in an undertone.
'That he was dead.'
'You never feared that he might have forgotten you?'
Again his accents were so hard that Veranilda gazed at him in troubled wonder.
'You never feared that?' he added, with fugitive eyes.
'Had I dreamt of it,' she replied, 'I think I should not live.' Then in a voice of anxious humility, 'Could Basil forget me?'